Helen Keller, though deaf and blind, became a women’s suffragist and political activist. She published twelve books and a number of articles over the coarse of her life.

She contracted a disease when she was nineteen months old (likely scarlet fever or meningitis) that left her blind and deaf. As a young child, she developed a repertoire of physical signs which she used to communicate with her parents and with the young daughter of the Keller family’s cook.

Helen Keller become widely known through the dramatic depictions of a 1959 play and the 1962 film The Miracle Worker.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew (below) announced plans today for Harriet Tubman to replace U.S. President Andrew Jackson as the portrait on the front side of the twenty-dollar bill. The exact design will be announced in 2020.

Tubman, was a Christian African-American, born into slavery who became a humanitarian, abolitionist and one of the leaders’ of the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War as a Unionspy. she became an icon of American courage and freedom.